The Giants and the Rockies are battling it out for the National League wild card, but both teams are refusing to put their best lineup on the field.

Seth Smith is the second best hitter on the Colorado Rockies. In 251 at-bats, he has compiled a .909 OPS, and his .394 wOBA is second on the team only to Todd Helton’s .397. And yet on most nights Smith rides the pine behind obviously inferior hitters like Ryan Spilborghs and Eric Young Jr.

Fred Lewis is the second best hitter on the San Francisco Giants. In 273 AB, he has compiled a .360 OBP, and his .339 wOBA is second on the team only to Pablo Sandoval’s .395. And yet on most nights Fred Lewis rides the pine behind obviously inferior hitters like Nate Schierholtz and Eugenio Velez.

Both of these players are clearly superior to the other options at hand, at this point in the season, and both are the second best hitters on their team, and it’s not particularly close. Plus both players have the pedigree and the at-bats this season to suggest that their numbers are not just a sample size issue. Lewis’s numbers in particular are almost dead on his career marks across the board.

It’s pure foolishness for these two teams which each harbor playoff hopes to both make their second-best hitters sit in crucial stretch-run games. I can’t remember the last time I saw even one contending team do this kind of thing, let alone two.

I am simply astonished to see how often Joe Torre is making Russell Martin catch all 9 innings in interleague matchups in AL parks so far this year.

Given Martin’s well-known wearing down at the end of the past two seasons due to overuse, and the fact that his poor performance this season may well be related, away games in AL parks seem like golden chances to keep Martin’s bat in the lineup while resting his aching body.

And yet, so far in 5 out of 7 such games so far this season, Joe Torre has pencilled Martin in at catcher, giving the DH duties to someone else. This makes no sense whatsover, especially since backup Brad Ausmus is a well-respected game-caller who is batting .305 with a .375 OBP so far this year and is getting paid very well for a backup catcher – he should be used. And even moreso, as mentioned, Martin could really use the rest.

I mean, I could understand if Joe Torre had some big bat off the bench that he really wanted to get into the game as DH, but the two guys he has been DH’ing instead of Martin are 37-year-old Mark Loretta (.635 OPS this season) and minor league emergency call-up Mitch Jones, neither of whom is anyone’s idea of a “big bat.”

Has there ever been a bigger gap between a manager’s reputation and his actual in-game lack of managerial skills than in the case of Joe Torre?

In last night’s Dodger victory over the Giants to sweep a 3 game series, Dodgers reserve infielder Doug Mientkiewicz slapped a pinch-hit RBI double down the right field line and then made a horribly awkward and completely unnecessary dive into second base, severely dislocating his right shoulder in the process (pictured above).  At the time of the dive, no infielder was even within 20 feet of the second base bag.

Back in the clubhouse, Dodger trainers popped his shoulder back in, but then it popped right back out again, meaning Mientkiewicz is probably headed for surgery.

Sucks for Mientkiewicz, but what really makes this so frustrating for Dodgers fans is what Mientkiewicz cost the team.

Manager Joe Torre insisted the Dodgers sign Mientkiewicz to a minor league contract in the offseason (because Joe loves what he knows, and he knows Mientkiewicz from when he managed him back on the Yankees), and Torre was then bound and determined to shoehorn Mientkiewicz onto the major league squad, no matter how much Mientkiewicz did not fit in with the rest of the roster.

“I like how he is not afraid to get his shirt dirty,” Torre said back in late March.

But of course, forcing Mientkiewicz onto the roster ultimately meant that the Dodgers had to trade away Delwyn Young to Pittsburgh, only to have Mientkiewicz tear up his shoulder on a ridiculously foolish play just two days after the trade.

So now the Dodgers have no Delwyn Young *and* they’ve lost Mientkiewicz, so they’ll have to call up either Blake DeWitt or Xavier Paul, both of whom would be much better served getting at-bats every day than riding the pine in the majors.

But Torre was right about one thing. Mientkiewicz definitely was not afraid to get his shirt dirty.

So Bob Nightengale of USA Today is reporting that Barry Bonds is still trying to land a job in baseball, and that his agent, Jeff Borris, is going to personally contact all 30 teams.

Borris says he is “not optimistic” that a team will want Bonds after all 30 teams passed on him last season despite his willingness to play for the major league minimum.

Now everyone has their opinion on Bonds and if he’d be worth signing, but there is one team I think we can all agree should definitely sign Bonds right away, no question.

The San Francisco Giants!

After all, this is a team with all kinds of pitching, but big holes in its offense. No team other than the Giants is so close to contention if only they could add a big bat.

Second, the Giants just spent the last 3 months saying that they would love to sign Manny Ramirez, but only “if the price is right.” What price could be more right than the major league minimum? And is there any player around who would be more similar to Manny than Bonds? A no-defense clubhouse cancer left fielder with tons of patience, good power, and a swirl of controversy? If Manny was a good fit, than wouldn’t Bonds be an even better fit, bringing Manny-like numbers at a tiny, tiny fraction of the cost?

And finally, while other teams might have legitimate concerns about how Bonds would fit into their “clubhouse chemistry,” isn’t the one team where that wouldn’t be much of a concern the San Francisco Giants? Who play in the one city where Bonds is still kind of beloved, and whose players all know how to live with Bonds from two years ago?

The Giants are fools for not having signed Bonds yesterday. If he’ll really play for just the minimum, then they seriously have nothing to lose.